The Hillary Clinton Campaign did Everything Right

by Tom Kando

The Hillary Clinton campaign did NOTHING wrong. As usual, the pundits and the media are wrong. Ever since Trump’s victory, it’s been nothing but Monday morning quarter backing. On December 26, it was David Axelrod interviewing Obama. They agreed that if Obama had been the Democratic candidate, he would have won. Since the November 8 disaster, the media have been saying - nearly unanimously - that the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party botched it. Hillary and her Party didn’t listen sufficiently to the plight of struggling working-class white guys, they were too cautious, they were too much into identity politics, they were counting their chickens prematurely, etc.

What is so shameless about these so-called “experts” - and I mean pundits such as the York Times’ David Brooks, anchor people like CNN’s Don Lemon and Anderson Cooper, “analysts” such as liberals David Axelrod and David Gergen, and conservative Charles Krauthammer - is that WITHIN HOURS of the election result, they made a 180-degree about face:

Until November 8, the consensus of these geniuses was that (1) Trump didn’t stand a chance; he was his own worst enemy; (2) the GOP was on a self-destruct course, in a death spiral, bound to split apart, moribund, soon to vanish as a significant conservative force in American politics; (3) It could only avert this fate by drastically changing its message, its character, its very essence; (4) Hillary Clinton won all three debates hands down; (5) she ran an extremely efficient campaign, and (6) she was about to win in a landslide.

The day AFTER the election, the oh-so-wise analysts embarked on the EXACT OPPOSITE narrative: (1) Trump possessed a uniquely effective style of campaigning; (2) The party that was self-destroying was the DEMOCRATIC party. (3) That party needed urgently to change its fundamental message, its character, its essence; (4) Hillary Clinton’s campaign style was her undoing; (5) she didn’t spend enough time in the key must-win states; (6) her loss could be expected...

What utter nonsense! This is nothing but ad hoc, after-the-fact recalibrating. The Pundits and the Media know nothing.

Here is the truth about what happened:

1. Hillary and the Dems. did NOTHING wrong. They did everything right. They beat Trump by 3 million votes.

2. The election was stolen by (A) the Comey letters and (B) the Russians and Wikileaks. The Republicans simply cheated. And I am not even talking about the electoral college. Flawed as that system is, it represents the rules which are currently known and accepted by all sides. Without (A) and (B), Hillary would have gotten Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which she lost by a total of about 100,000 votes.

No. I am talking about the UNPREDICTABLE last-minute cheating that took place. No wonder the pollsters had a devil of a time, even the highly competent Nate Silver. How do you factor in cheating and stealing an election?

The other night, the Cleveland Cavaliers stole a game from the Golden State Warriors. How? The refs gave the game to them. On the last play, Cleveland’s Richard Jefferson stepped on Kevin Durant’s foot but was not called for it. Final score: 109-108.

3. In other words: Trump’s election was a FLUKE, a once-in-a-million singularity, an unrepeatable event.

Recently, Frank Rich published an article written before the election but published now. He describes Trump’s ascendency precisely in those terms. He quotes the Wall Street Journal: “According to The Wall Street Journal editorial page, Trump is a fluke — a “unique celebrity” who captured the nomination only because of luck and happenstance, “a confluence of unrepeatable factors.”

The only thing is, these statements were made BEFORE the election, counting on the probability of a Clinton victory. Now they can be applied to Trump’s ultimate victory.

In sum: What happened was an ACCIDENT; like a tire blowing out on the turnpike; it was unavoidable, unpredictable; it could happen to anyone.

Therefore, if Hillary had to do it all over again and I ran her campaign, my advice to her would be: Do EXACTLY the same things you did last time. The probability of Comey letters and Russia-Wikileaks attacks occurring during the last two weeks of a campaign is 1 in a billion, so your victory is assured.

It is aggravating to read/listen to the pundits and the “analysts,” because they are telling you what lesson to learn from this catastrophe, and it is the wrong lesson. They are telling you that the Democrats did everything wrong, when a week earlier they were sure that it was the Republicans who were doing everything wrong. They don’t know what they are talking about, any more than the Roman augurs knew anything when they predicted the outcome of a battle by examining the entrails of sacrificial goats.

These people are not worth listening to, except to find out what they WISH would happen, and what they need to say in order to remain popular.

© Tom Kando 2016;All Rights Reserved
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